Hundreds of innocent people may be in prison based on faulty forensic evidence, yet the FBI never alerted those prisoners, their attorneys or the courts about the error, a joint investigation by the Washington Post and “60 Minutes†reported. For about 40 years, the FBI believed that the lead in bullets had unique chemical signatures, and that it was possible to match that lead to a single box of bullets. But that isn’t true. In fact, it’s statistically possible that lead from a bullet can have tens of millions of matches. After the FBI learned about this mistake a few years ago, it sent out a form letter saying that it was stopping the test, but it didn’t admit that the evidence from the lab was wrong, and it didn’t advise the Justice Department to review cases in which this evidence was instrumental in a conviction.
Because of the media investigation, the FBI is finally launching a review of these cases and plans to notify prosecutors of the faulty analysis. The National Association of Criminal Defense Lawyers and the Innocence Network also are creating a task force to review these cases.
Posted by Phillip Brownlee
Follow us
